A new start to campus hiring: TimesJobs survey

With startups starting to vie with large companies to pull in fresh talent from educational institutes, campus hiring is back in focus. TimesJobs.com Campus Recruitment Study 2016 explores this new trend

Apeksha Kaushik, TimesJobs.com

In a campus recruitment survey conducted by TimesJobs.com, nearly 70 per cent startups said that hiring from institutes is going to be their key channel to tap fresh talent. In fact, around 22 per cent startups said that they have hired 10-20 per cent of staffers from various campus placement drives in 2015.

Acknowledging that a well-defined campus recruitment programme is key to solving the talent crisis, 40 per cent organisations claimed to have a comprehensive and ingenious campus hiring strategy.Breaking the stereotype and expanding the horizon to get quality talent, over 60 per cent of the surveyed startups said they will be looking beyond tier-I B-schools to hire talent.

For nearly 38 per cent employers, domain knowledge is going to be the key decisive factor in hiring talent followed by good communication and leadership skills, according to the TimesJobs.com survey.

THE PAYBACKS

The paybacks of campus recruitment investments are huge, say startups. Nearly 35 per cent of surveyed startups consider campus hiring to be a cost-effective exercise. Campus recruitment not only helps cut down expenditure but also saves the time involved in advertising, screening and selecting candidates for available job positions. With many startups operating on shoe-string budgets, institutes serve as a resourceful recruitment medium.

Campus recruitment is also considered as one of the best tools to build a strong employer brand by nearly 30 per cent of the surveyed startups.Nearly 32 per cent India Inc organisations (big and small) perceive campus recruitment as one of the best brand building tools during challenging times. Organisations that have a strong campus connect increase their recall value among the prospective employees.In fact, in an earlier TimesJobs.com study on campus recruitment, many organisations said that economic slowdown is the best time to intensify campus placement exercise and do some brand building.

THE OBSTRUCTIONHowever, for nearly 34 per cent of the surveyed startups, the employability quotient of job seekers is the biggest area of concern while recruiting from campuses.

While the issue has garnered a lot of focus from industry bodies and institutions, employability remains a major roadblock in encouraging the use of campus recruitment programme to hire talent. This huge gap between what is taught in colleges and what is expected in the industry has been a key focus area of discussion in various TimesJobs.com boardroom dialogues on skills shortage.

Industry leaders in these sessions have said that collaboration with business schools to groom students for the corporate world is the need of the hour. However, the industry-academia association needs greater focus and more participation to combat the issue of employability and skill mismatch.

Another big challenge in campus recruitment, as stated by nearly 30 per cent of the startup employers, is the high drop-out rates/joining ratio of the candidates. This has been pointed out as the biggest challenge in the earlier study on campus recruitment by TimesJobs.com.

THE MUST-HAVE TOOLS

Earlier, the organisations used to post the vacancies for fresh graduates on the institute's bulletin boards. But, with changing workforce generation and increase in demand for fresh talent across sectors and specialisations, organisations are employing contemporary and creative tools to position themselves as the employers of choice. Innovating campus hiring channel is more significant for startups since they are growing and the budgets are also low.

Social media is without doubt the preferred channel for startups to announce openings and engage with candidates on campus. This is voted as the most effective tool by nearly 39 per cent startup companies.

Video interviewing is another effective tool for startups since they aim to tap talent from beyond A-list B-schools.

For 23 per cent startups, video interviewing saves on cost and travel expenses while allowing the recruiter to virtually meet the prospective employees and screen them for the next level.